Lowell closed UNH's season last year in Manchester. Hellebuyck tossed a 28-save shutout and the River Hawks beat UNH, 2-0, in the NCAA Northeast Regional championship game at the Verizon Wireless Arena and advanced to the Frozen Four for the first time.

The teams go back it — and finish the regular season series between them — at the Whittemore Center in Durham Saturday night at 7.

Hockey East has expanded to 11 teams with the addition of Notre Dame this season and teams are only playing each other twice. In the past, they have played three times.

The Wildcats struck first on defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk's first goal of the season 6:06 into the game. Dalton Speelman had an assist on the play.

Lowell answered quickly with a Josh Hallstrom power play goal at 8:25 with UNH's Kevin Goumas serving a penalty for interference.

The River Hawks made it 2-1 less than three minutes later on an Adam Chapie goal.

Lowell upped its lead to 3-1 on a Jake Suter goal 8:15 into the second period.

Goumas scored on the power play with 2:38 left in the second period to cut the lead to 3-2. Matt Willows and Eric Knodel had assists.

The goal put Goumas at 99 points for his career. He has 28 goals and 71 assists in 111 career games.

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UNH won all three regular season games games against the River Hawks last year. The Wildcats beat Lowell 5-2 in Durham and 3-0 and 5-2 in Lowell. The series wrapped up last year on Dec. 1. . . . Lowell went on a nine-game win streak after the Dec. 1 loss to UNH and ended up winning its first Hockey East regular season championship and first league tournament title, too.